Column: Mobility

Shopping at bricks-and-mortar stores and shopping online provide very different experiences. eCommerce sites have now evolved through multiple generations to ensure a high-quality online shopping experience. Some key elements of a good online shopping experience include allowing customers to check out without creating an account, informing customers where they are in the checkout process, and providing a clear confirmation that a customer has successfully completed an order. Amazon’s home page has gone through multiple generations, as shown in Figures 1 and 2. Read More

There are several differences between designing a Web site for a computer and designing one for a smartphone. In his Alertbox post on “Mobile Usability,” Jakob Nielsen points out a number of constraints affecting Web site use on mobile devices: small screens, awkward input, delayed downloads, and poorly designed mobile Web sites. In comparing the design of mobile Web sites with the design of Web sites for computers, I realized that complex context is another important factor that differentiates the two platforms. For Nielsen’s report, controlled usability testing in a lab was one of the primary methods for studying mobile usability, so it’s understandable that his report didn’t consider context.

In addition to the four problems Nielsen wrote about, I’ll cover design for complex contexts of use in my discussion of constraints on mobile Web sites. In practice, being aware of these constraints lets us approach these problems with caution and come up with better design solutions for mobile devices. Based on my analysis of more than 20 mobile Web sites, I’ll point out some ways of working within these constraints. Read More

Web site design principles and best practices are becoming well known these days. For example: In a process funnel, progress status should be readily visible across its pages. We should prevent errors from happening, but when errors do occur, provide adequate guidance to help users resolve them.

Many believe the basic principles and guidelines that are applicable in the design of Web sites should still apply when designing for mobile platforms. After all, Web design has evolved from basic, text-based HTML pages into today’s Web standards. So, we might expect that mobile sites that follow the same guidelines could easily reach the same level of success with users that desktop Web sites have achieved. Read More